Facebook Launches ‘Reaction’ Buttons

Toronto, ON, Canada / 102.1 the Edge

February 24, 2016 11:13 am

Still want a ‘dislike’ button? You’re not getting one yet, but Facebook is launching new ‘reaction’ buttons.

They include ‘sad,’ ‘angry,’ ‘wow,’ and even ‘haha.’ In testing phase users have reportedly reacted well to the additions. The Facebook team looked at the most popular one-word comments and chose from there. Many users, according to Mark Zuckerberg, felt the ‘like’ button wasn’t always “appropriate” for every post.

Now, instead of seeing how many ‘likes’ a post got, you will see how many ‘reactions’ you got.

Will it create more online interaction? Maybe users can now respond to posts that might be more emotional in nature, even if they don’t know what to say. “Misuse” of reactions will also be monitored, though accomplishing proper use of the buttons will likely be up to users over time.

It’s launched today, and our users have already ‘reacted’ with the ‘angry’ button on this post:

And, telling of real reactions to the Kardashians, both the ‘love’ and ‘haha’ buttons have been used on this one:

So what do you think? Do you like the idea of more reaction options, and what one will be your favourite new button to use?